Therapy for Grief and Loss

You’re walking through the grocery store mere weeks after a loved one has died, brain in a fog, barely seeing the shoppers around you. All of a sudden you find yourself tearing up as you examine a box of their favorite cereal. You quickly wipe the tears away, embarrassed and annoyed with your body for not co-operating with your desire to appear “normal”.

Or maybe you find yourself in a pattern of arguing or shutting down with your partner that seems to start out of nowhere and leaves you confused, unaware how that relationship loss you never processed from 10 years ago is blocking your ability to feel safe and heard in your current partnership.

All losses invite grief in, no matter how prepared or willing we are to be with it. Every loss of people, relationships or parts of ourselves that hasn’t been processed before will also be re-activated and stronger when the present moment feels shaky, unsure, or out of our control.

That is why it is so important to understand and tap into the way our bodies hold grief before we rush into other meaning making or attempts to “just move on” and “think positively”.

Your body knows how hurt you are, how alone, untethered and shaky you feel, and and every attempt to deny, shove aside or analyze your embodied experience of the grief you carry only makes these feelings stronger.

Grief sessions with me are a soft place to land and practice being with the grief that feels too big, overwhelming, devastating or buried beneath outside responsibility to hold yourself.

The work of processing the grief you carry will likely move slower than you want, for grief is often one of the most exiled parts of the internal system. It takes time and devoted attention for grief to believe it is allowed to be in the room at all, let alone be processed.

Grief work with me is gentle, creative work that is centered on:

• honoring grief as a necessary and sacred part of being human

• giving the grief you carry un-distracted time, space and attention

• connecting with your body as a source of movement, support, knowing and meaning making

• supporting you in establishing rituals and practices that support your grief integration outside of session

• integrating your grief into your life and your newly forming identity

In addition to the internal space and understanding that processing grief will give you, clients who have spent time with me somatically processing their grief often find that they have more access to:

joy | creativity | laughter | energy |

healthy boundaries

The body holds it all, and the time you spend with the sadness, darkness and heaviness that so often permeates the experience of grief will naturally (without even trying) give permission to the (often repressed) places that feel light and spacious to grow.

Ultimately, embodying grief can open the doorway to live in a way that is more authentic and true to you.